Markn for M Le magazine du Monde
ReportageIn the British port city, on June 7, anti-racist protesters threw the statue of slave trader Edward Colston into the sea. The city’s slave-trading past, which made its prosperity, is still part of the urban landscape. Today, her black community wants to submit public spaces to a work of memory.
Colin Moody scrolls through dozens of photos on his iPhone. We catch a glimpse of a little boy with a red Black Lives Matter (BLM) (“black lives matter”) t-shirt, his knee on the neck of the statue lying on the ground, a little girl at the feet of the fallen bronze colossus, a black lady in tears in the crowd, and that moment when the statue rocks in the water of Bristol harbor, followed by the gaze by dozens of faces. This last shot, Colin named it Tea Wave, ” the wave “. ” Look at this movement, this energy, all the water on the right! “, he comments, talkative, flowery mask on his face. “It was extremely powerful but absolutely peaceful at the same time. ”
The artist gave us an appointment at a cocktail bar in the heights of Bristol, the capital of the southwest of England, the city of the artist Banksy, of the trip-hop groups Portishead and Massive Attack, and now that “where the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was thrown into the water”, on June 7, on a gloomy Sunday, at the end of a demonstration in homage to George Floyd.
Cathartic episode
The event toured the world and launched a movement to challenge the symbols of white and colonial history in public spaces in Europe and the United States. The fall of Colston (1636-1721), celebrated as the great benefactor of Bristol, also acted as an electric shock on this dynamic metropolis, but tense on its slave past. “It is as if a champagne cork has jumped”, for Tristan Cork, journalist at Bristol Post, who knows his city and its upheavals by heart.
Colin was at the demonstration on June 7, reflex camera in hand, and he strafed. At the beginning of July, he set up a traveling exhibition and offers Bristolians the opportunity to express in his photos what inspired them by the unbolting of the statue, the moment when it was dragged to the port from Center, the narrow concrete square where it had been erected. “ It must have taken ten minutes, the statue was making an incredible noise, it looked like it was screaming. “ On his photo “The Wave”, we can guess with the red marker a “This statue has obscured history for too long, good riddance! “, a “Proud to have been there with my family” or a “Rest in pieces” (“Lay in pieces”).
The photographer is not the only one to exploit this cathartic episode. In the local cultural sphere, it is effervescence. Daniel Edmund, one of the speakers at the June 7 protest, embarks on a series of documentaries on “Races and genders, to give another perspective on institutional racism”. The young man, at the head of a coaching company, says: “We need more people to advocate for blacks, we need more education on mainstream racism, we also need to rebuild trust between communities. ”
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